Points

"I see you've still got that blog slagging Pellegrini off as your pinned tweet" says a friend of mine in Glasgow hours before our Champions League tie against Celtic. As he points out that I haven't said anything relevant for 6 months, many supporters are stood outside in the cold and wet queuing up trying to get their tickets for that evenings match.

Fortunately for me, the coach I got up to Glasgow landed outside the Old Fruitmarket at about 12, just before another few coaches and trains rocked up to the city to get our tickets for the match. I queued for about 15 minutes in total and within about 30 minutes of parking up on the coach I was sipping a pint of Guinness. I was lucky compared to a lot of City fans. I was unlucky in Madrid back in May when a large chunk of our travelling allocation turned up at the same time for the same reason - but as frustrating as it was to waste an hour or so out of a bar, at least the weather was alright.

These measures that the club have put in place for the picking up of away tickets for a European fixture started earlier in the competition. The first time I came across it was in Paris, which I thought was down to the fact that Paris is a bit bait at the time, only months after the terrorist attacks. But obviously not. This afternoon the club have posted the reasons why these measures were put into place:

• Supporter feedback that the current ticket sales process does not work and access to tickets is becoming more difficult
• Supporters that qualify are buying tickets with no intention of attending the respective match and selling them on
• Inappropriate behaviour of a small number of supporters when at the away ground

The first two points are kind of interlinked so I'll have a look at the third point first. I'm unsure what they're referring to here. I think the club are being really unspecific because it's a given within football club support that, "there's always a few trouble makers" or words to that effect. There isn't anything that stands out in my mind which has increased the the 5/6 years of continued appearances by City in Europe and as far as I'm aware there is not an increase in bans to our supporters. (I could be well off the mark here as I rarely visit the scaremongerfest of football forum's anymore.) Putting a system in place where people have to queue up for an hour in a hotel 5 hours before kick off will not effect supporters from acting like Brits abroad. There will be people heading out to Barcelona next week looking forward to drinking excessively and generally acting up - I'm not condoning it, but how on earth is picking up tickets as opposed to receiving them in the post going to change a persons behaviour? If you want to go abroad and act like a dick because of St. George or whatever then you're going to do that ticket in bag or ticket in hotel lobby.

So to the first two bullet points. As it stands the format for obtaining away tickets are the following:

• You have a customer number which is linked to your membership with the club.
• On this customer number you have points which are gained by buying tickets to football matches.
• When tickets go on sale for a new game, the criteria is broken down by those with x amount of points being able to purchase a ticket on a particular day. e.g. Supporters with 10,000 points can buy a ticket on Monday, supporters with 9,000 points can buy a ticket on Tuesday, supporters with 8,000 points can buy a ticket on Wednesday and so on.

Quite straight forward, really.

Before I go into detail about the negatives of the system, the biggest negative of all is these points being called "Loyalty Points". What is loyalty? How do you define loyalty? Is one guy more loyal to the club than someone else because he can afford to go more? Is Liam Wright of 2010 more loyal than Liam Wright of 2016 more loyal because I've gone from living 160 miles away from the ground to 1.6 miles away from the ground? And what's worse, the club introduced a £50 charge to double your points per game a.k.a. Platinum Membership. 

The club's golden period has come at a time where a lot of people are hard up, to the people at the top of the club £50 is loose change, but to a lot of people £50 is a lot of money which you can't just part with. People have families to feed. A season ticket at a football club is expensive enough considering coming bottom of the Premier League means the club are given more money than I could possibly comprehend. Where does that extra £50 go? It certainly doesn't keep out City's latest official Asian tyre sponsor from getting a handful of tickets at Anfield. That extra £50 gives you the piece of mind that some poor sod has to go to double the amount of games you do to creep ahead of you in the points system. 

Where the loyalty points system falls down is the following:

An away allocation of, lets say 3,000, will not be solely sold through this system. 

Why? 

Corporate tickets i.e. freebies players get and sponsors get a slice. How big this slice is is unknown but for anyone who has stood in the corner of The Emirates or Stamford Bridge will know that these 'types' seem to be everywhere. 

Supporters Clubs. I have run a supporters club before and unless things have changed in the past two years there was nothing in place to say that I had to give the tickets we were given as a branch to supporters over a certain number of points. i.e. my branch were given 10 tickets for Liverpool away and the points sold out at 10,000, I could distribute these tickets to people 10 people who didn't even have a season ticket, just a "Blue Membership" because they were members of the supporters branch. Again, I would only be guessing the % of the allocation which is given out this way.

The second point on the clubs statement is an issue. The "points whores" as we call them, live amongst us. People have bought tickets with no intention of going to the game. I don't think anyone is completely innocent when it comes to this, though. "Liam, are you going to West Ham away? I'm desperate for a ticket as I'm meeting up with my mate from uni and I'm going to a party in London that night, I don't have enough points for a ticket but can I use yours if you're not going?" - this is an example of a message I might receive off someone. If I'm not going to the match I can't really say to him "Sorry mate, but I think you should respect City's loyalty points system" - I'm doing my mate a favour, the points don't really come into it. I'm not whoring myself out for the points, but I'm letting someone queue jump.

The points system has been in place for approx 15 years. So if you went all the time between 2004-2009 that is just as relevant as going from 2011 onwards. Now you could argue this either way here - if you went all the time when Musampa was the man then that could make you seem more 'deserving' than going in days of David Silva. But, so what if you went all the time under Keegan? You've basically fucked it off for a decade. 

Another issue is the younger fans. I was chatting to a mate in Glasgow who had gone up to the match on the chance he could pick up a ticket. I see this lad everywhere but he's in his early twenties and had to get a ticket on other peoples membership for years. This is something which has been an issue. A lot of my best mates don't want to take risks on tickets for certain games going down to their points when two of our mates who used to go all the time but now have other priorities have higher points. Lad who has gone to 50-70% of away games for the past 8 seasons will use someones ticket who went to 90% for 4 seasons but now doesn't bother with it. Your Dad's mate who's got 17,000 points is moving to Majorca but keeping his season ticket, you're free to use his ticket for away games - do you use the easy way and beef up his points or do you concentrate on the 8,590 you've got?

From my point of view, despite their being flaws, I'm all for keeping the system as it is. This will sound very selfish, but it is what it is. Watching City away and being in different towns and cities with my mates is not a chore, but I have put a lot of work into getting into the position I'm in. For every 6-1 at Old Trafford there's been a 2-0 loss at Portsmouth, 1-0 loss at Charlton, going to West Ham, Moscow, Chelsea and Newcastle in the space of 10 days. Enjoyed all these days, but there's reasons why some of us at the top of the pile don't want to surrender our position. I know I'm not alone in fearing the alternatives like Chelsea's points system restarting at the start of every season, or United's dreaded ballot. If anyone from the club reads this; please do not do a ballot. The club is struggling enough at losing it's fan identity without you making it worse.

I believe a rolling 10 year format would be more beneficial for younger fans and for fans who may only now be able to afford to go to our former working class passion. The club have the information at their finger tips and to be honest, why should going to Reading for a 1-0 loss on a Monday night in September 2006 bare anything on whether I get a ticket for West Brom in a few weeks? For the points whores; it's going to be hard to eradicate them, especially with the new £30 away ticket rule, but would a ballot or a fresh points system stop that? Most away tickets go on sale 4 weeks before the match, out of 20 people that buy it a month in advance 1 is more than likely to either get the curly finger treatment from their partner, get too pissed the night before the match or something else unforeseen come up. 

For those that want to get up the chain; don't buy your ticket off someone else. Use your own points. You won't get a ticket for everything, but more often than not away games do go down a lot to achievable points. You've just got to do a few Swansea and Crystal Palace's away before you can get Liverpool or United away. That's the way that anyone with a lot of points has had to do it.

An ending fitting for the start

11th May 2013. It seems like a very long time ago now, but on that morning City fans woke up to the news that regardless of whether we won that days F.A. Cup final we would be dismissing our manager Roberto Mancini. It was two days off the first anniversary of Mancini and City's greatest triumph, and possibly the most iconic moment in English football. 

Like most, I loved and still think the world about Roberto Mancini. He picked up a squad which was struggling under Mark Hughes and gave them organisation. We may have missed out on some initial goals in his first season, but the board gave him time to continue building. The summer of 2010 should always be remembered as one of the greatest as far as acquisitions go. Ask most City fans and it would be a toss up between Yaya Toure and David Silva as to who their favourite ever player is, and we bought both of them in the summer window. Add to them players like James Milner, Aleksander Kolarov, Mario Balotelli and you've got a decent chunk of the make up of those that delivered us our first trophies in 35 years. 

But it wasn't just about winning things which made Mancini our man, and it was certainly a lot more than simply wearing a City scarf on the sidelines, although that was a good first step to at least getting on the fans side. It was the way he spoke, the way he acted and his whole passion and ambition for the club. The way that he punched the air when we scored that last minute winner against Villarreal, the way which he gave it to Ferguson on the touchline, and the way that although in the moments of madness on a sunny mid May afternoon in 2012 he didn't accept the thanks or congratulations from the press' questions, he first and foremost said "this is for all of our supporters".

Back to 2013 and things had turned a bit grey. Mancini was still strongly backed by the majority of our supporters and there was a big feeling that the new guys at board level were not giving him the backing he deserved, despite offering him a five year contract. The summer following the title win Mancini made it clear that he wanted Van Persie and De Rossi but instead we got Scott Sinclair and Maicon. Public spats with Balotelli was bad for the clubs PR. And unfortunately as much as you do not want to admit it, we are a public face of our owners and we must be seen to be a success but also approachable. Lots of rumours about players turning against Mancini also came out, and the much publicized view of kitman Les Chapman that he wouldn't even say 'hello' when he came in.

The word was that Mancini was going to be sacked and replaced with Manuel Pellegrini. I honestly had no idea who the guy was. I'm incredibly ignorant of continental football, and I don't have Sky/watch Match of the Day - Danny Drinkwater could be in the room with me right now and I wouldn't know who he is. So when I found out he was the Malaga manager I, and I'm sure a lot of others were underwhelmed. If we're getting rid of our manager that we love then it should be for someone that is clearly a lot more qualified. 

I was stood outside my entrance at Wembley before the Wigan game and there was confusion, frustration and anger in the air. The Mancini song rung out outside and inside the ground, and "you can stick your Pellegrini up your arse". We all know how the rest of the day went, Ben Watson scored, we left the ground and it pissed it down. The next day Mancini was sacked.

Why am I writing about Mancini if this is a blog about Pellegrini? Because it is really important to the context of his story. I'm not for one minute suggesting that people were against Pellegrini from day one because of Mancini, however it's hard to argue that with a lot of fans the ghost of Roberto has been over Manuel, in the same way that the ghosts of de Jong and Barry will continue to circle over the heads of the players that have allowed the Etihad go from fortress to just another place where you'll probably score if you have a go. 

Fast forward to 8th May 2016 and the sun may have been shining in east Manchester but the air was full of desperate emotions. Despite one of our best performances of the season, we couldn't see off Arsenal. Similarly how we performed well against Tottenham but ended up on the losing side back in February. This isn't about the Arsenal game, the damage has been done elsewhere in the season, but this day was for the majority of match going fans the last time to see some players and the manager in the flesh. The final whistle blew and the apathy shown to the players and staff from the supporters was just as strong as any chant screamed in passion outside Wembley in 2013.

On May 13th 2012 Martin Tyler said a few sound bites which are imprinted on a City fans memory, but the ones which still ring in my ear are "is this the start of a dynasty?" and "is winning things the new 'Typical City'?" We should have been at the start of a period of domination seconds after Aguero fired the ball past Paddy Kenny, but instead we're sat here clinging at the threads of Champions League football with only one more title to our cabinet plus a couple of League Cups. How has this happened? 

We are all aware where we came from; I'm not going to go on about the "remember York away" aspect of our support as it's been done to death. We should be expecting a lot more than what we've achieved.

Is our current situation solely down to Pellegrini? Of course not. Financial Fair Play restrictions have hindered City somewhat, but that doesn't excuse how the money which was available has been spent. The aforementioned summer in 2012 was a sign of City standing still. The summer of 2014 again was City standing still. But £40 million on Mangala; he's recently had a handful of decent games but surely that money could have been spent better? Possibly an understatement there.

The summer just gone was the first time in years where we've bought players who have clearly been identified as first team starters, not just squad players but we have gone backwards. To be honest when you look at the squad on paper it still reads as a very strong squad apart from one area in particular - up front. Which bright spark had the idea that we should enter the season with 3 strikers? And when you look at those three strikers you have one which is without doubt one of the greatest in the world, however is constantly on the verge of injury. Then you have an untried 19 year old who has turned out to be one of the few success stories of the year. And then there's Bony. People boo'd Bony when he came on yesterday, which was a very disappointing thing to hear. I do not rate him one bit, I hope he doesn't play for City again but to boo him? Nah. It's not his fault that he's playing in the wrong team, and who wouldn't have wanted to join City from Swansea?

Back to Pellegrini. 

His first season was overall a success. He came through a dodgy start to go on one of the best runs City have ever been on. The winter of 2013/14 was one of the best City have ever played and every week we looked to smash teams off the pitch. The squad was rotated well and Manuel got the best out of Kolarov, Nasri and Dzeko whilst Negredo seemed to be a great signing, this coincided with Yaya having the best season of his career. 

After a rocky patch, we became strong again as the season finished and we won the Premier League. We broke records and at times were incredible, however there were a fair few moments where you wondered what game Pellers was watching. Wigan at home in the F.A. Cup and the two big Champions League games vs Bayern and Barca at home made him look naive.

The 2014/15 season wasn't the worst, but there were some pretty grim moments. Losing to Newcastle at home in the League Cup and Middlesbrough in the F.A. Cup too stick out in my mind. The Arsenal game at the end of January was bad. I think for a lot of people the biggest turning point with the fans and Pellegrini came away at Burnley. We lost and looked utterly toothless and out of ideas. The 4-4-2 system had been sussed out and he wasn't learning. Add this to walking straight past the away end and not acknowledging the fans at all. We don't ask for much in the way of recognition, just a wave or a clap for 10 seconds at the end of the game is good enough. Suppose when you're a multimillionaire you can't really relate to people have to put off other areas of their life to try and scrape together that £50 away ticket.

One thing that we rarely had between 2010-2014 was taking an absolute pasting. United at Old Trafford was the first time in years where we looked like we were going to concede every time they went forward. In past 13 months these occasions have happened time and time again. Spurs away, Liverpool home and away, Leicester at home, Southampton away, Stoke away. 20 goals conceded in those 6 games. I remember writing in December 2009 that Hughes didn't sort out the defensive unit from conceding 4 away at United in September til he eventually got sacked in December during a week where we conceded 9 goals in 3 games. 

Hughes got sacked for less, Mancini certainly got sacked for a lot less. Although I can see why they were sacked - the sacking of Hughes for Mancini was completely justified. Because of Pellegrini's nice guy attitude and basically knowing he's been a caretaker manager since day 1 he's been allowed to overstay his welcome by over a year and having banners held up at the ground for his farewell speech.

Now I don't dislike Pellegrini. I follow people on Twitter who say some ridiculous things about him like they want him to die etc. which is probably the best way of showing how the internet has allowed people to showcase their psychological issues. Similar to his press conferences, to his passion towards the fans, I have no real emotion towards him. I don't wish anything bad on him, if anything I wish him well in the future. As I've said in the past, he's just out of his depth as a top level football manager. He wasn't trying to make the team lose. And you're a bit of a mental if you think otherwise. 

The way in which the board has allowed him to be in charge of the club for this period of time just to set up everything for Pep screams of putting all your eggs in a basket. Pep might turn out to win us everything over the next few years, and that is what we're all hoping for. But the club see us as customers, and they've treated their customers without a lot of respect over the past year.  I know this is a really short term way of looking at it, but we could have brought someone (anyone) in in November and probably saved this season. Look at what Real Madrid have done. They could potentially win the La Liga and Champions League because they got rid of someone who wasn't up to the task and despite him being one of the greatest players in the history of football, he had zero managerial experience.

Of course, there is excitement surrounding change. We're getting a much better manager with a fantastic CV and one that will hopefully create a bond with the supporters.

The first era of Mansour is ending. As well as the manager, some of the key players of our recent history and the badge of 19 years are to become part of the past. But maybe that's something to talk about another time.

It is fitting for Pellegrini's time to end in the similar shambles in which he took the job 3 years ago. 

Roll on August...

The State Of Things

It takes me quite a bit these days to get so incensed or passionate by something to want to write about it. Sorry if this comes across as incoherent rambling, but if I say everything that's been pissing me off today then maybe I'll feel better, and for reading all this you might feel worse (which secretly makes me feel even better).

From the outside it might seem easy to point to one single issue at the moment as to why I'm letting my fingers let out a lot of rage, but the fact is that there are many issues and I think these past few days have been the tipping point. 

Where to start? How about the stuff on the pitch?

This rant is not just about yesterday. Yesterday was shit, and it's never nice to get beaten by United but I've seen us lose to United plenty of times before. Having said that, I've never seen a poorer United team and as one of my mate's said, there's been plenty of times in the last few years where you've seen them play and thought 'De Gea is keeping them in this', but they could have had either Andy Goram's in goal and and it wouldn't have made any difference.

Yesterday was typical of the season we've had so far. We've not turned up at all against any of the clubs doing well this season and we've looked the complete opposite of how we started this season and ended last season. Yeah sure there have been injuries to key players, something which Arsenal and United have both had to deal with. But gone is the reliability of a lot of players. Aguero won the player of the year award last year because of being the league's top scorer, but I think it's hard to argue that since his dip in form in the Autumn of 2013, Joe Hart has been our most consistent and reliable performer. Especially in the big games. 

When we won the title in 2012 we had a first 16 that were reliable and relatively fresh. Since then we've given Kompany more centre half pairings than calf injuries, we've played Silva and Yaya constantly without a sufficient break and we've gone from Tevez to Bony. 

A question I asked a fair few times last night before I sloped off home was; do we overrate our players? Ask many and they'll tell you that Fernandinho has been the best player in the team this season. And although I'm not disagreeing with that as such, is he really the best in the league in his position? Sagna too has had a great season after few and far between performances last year, but when Zabaleta has been fit we've looked a lot more dangerous attacking wise.

And the players we don't rate; Otamendi, Mangala, Fernando for example - are they really as bad as we think? These three have been the long term replacements for Kolo Toure, Lescott and Barry/de Jong (arguably Garcia, who was sold as soon as he looked half decent). Since we won the title in 2014 I can only think of a handful of great performances from the team and individuals. And what does that tell you?

The manager. 

Now I still feel uncomfortable and maybe a bit ashamed that I see so many people saying some really bad things about Manuel. I know people scoff at "well Chappy thinks he's a nice guy" or whatever, but the fact is he's just a football manager who is massively out of his depth and out of ideas. That shouldn't mean that you hate the guy or wish death upon him. It's not like he's the bloke in La Rosa takeaway on Great Ancoats Street who takes the chips out too early despite me telling him every fucking time that I like my chips crispy. No but seriously, no one cannot deny that Pellegrini has massively over stayed his welcome and he should resign/be sacked but I couldn't bring myself to hate him. This club has only ever won the league 4 times and he was there during one of these times, no matter how much you could now argue that we won it in spite of him.

He's lost it. Properly. I think the turning point for a lot of people including myself was Burnley away last season. But I gave him a second chance as we ended the season well and got off to a flyer. I was stood in the away end at Stoke a few months ago luckily only 2-0 and the combination of the cold air, my hangover and the Brittania playing "You're my Waterloo" by The Libertines at half time made it hit me once again. What are we doing with this guy? He's not got us organised and we seem to be absolutely shitting it every time the opposition go forward and there's not enough creativity when attacking.

I can't really think of ever feeling this way about a manager of City. I backed Pearce and Hughes right til the end. But this guy has been a caretaker manager for three years. No City player has improved in the time he has been here. Pep has got a proper job on his hands next year. And if you think there's any correlation between the announcement of the new manager and our form then you're wrong. We've been shite for 18 months, take away about 10 games.

Is he solely to blame? Of course not. Fair thing to say that some of the investment into the team hasn't been the best, with the aforementioned poorer players looking like huge amounts of money squandered - but is that down to the manager's coaching? The decision to sell Negredo, Dzeko and Jovetic within a calender year and only replace them with Bony is staggering when you think about it. We actually paid more for Bonehead than any of the three other strikers that fired us to the title 2 years ago. The club from the top seem to view this season getting through to the quarter finals of the Champions League as a great success. Semi's will be a good achievement, no doubt, but it doesn't stop the fact that despite some bad luck in groups and draws we've hugely under performed in Europe.

Which brings me on to the 2nd half of this rant. Ticket prices.

I've written before about City and the Champions League and how we didn't really "get" it. Well whether I get it now or not I want to win it as it's the only thing left for us this season. One of the issues I touched on was the empty seats at games. City not selling out home games is topic of much joy for people throughout the social media wank world. I see people I know who support other clubs mocking ours or other teams support. "Haha look at Stoke, they only took 1,300 to X" Barold McMongathon likes this post and also comments on it saying "shit club, shit fans". I can't even be arsed going in to these twattish shenanigans. 

This time last year I was working in Trafford Park and I had to drive past Old Trafford every day. I turned right off Chester Road and used to drive past a school. You're in a proper red area here and anyone who went to that school is well in their rights to support United. But I can only imagine how many of these kids will ever get to go to a live game watching their club. Not many I would think until they were over 18. 

This is happening all over the country. A sport which has it's traditions in working class areas of England is no longer affordable. This isn't new news. It's been like this for years. But it has been getting worse. 

But then there's a reason to celebrate. The Premier League has enforced a cap on away tickets to £30. Great news. Especially for someone like me without the greatest income who goes to at least 15 away games per season. You're seeing it everywhere now as well that clubs are either freezing season ticket prices or making reductions. The penny must have finally dropped at all the clubs.

Silence from City. The richest club in the world, no longer bound by FFP restrictions, famous for having to give away tickets for some games, are staying silent.

They have a great opportunity to show us what we can expect from next years prices by publishing the Champions League quarter final prices. And they don't only drop a bollock, they kick you in the bollocks first. We can't be expecting it to be £10 to get in for such a big game, and yeah I have paid £60 to watch us play at Stamford Bridge and The Emirates more than once in the past few years, but £40 being the cheapest adult ticket for a game which might not mean anything is so out of touch with the fanbase. 

Better wordsmiths than me have already written articles about how City should remember that Manchester is one of the most deprived areas of the country and that's bang on. There's a lot of people a lot worse off out there than myself as far as income goes but I'm getting to the point now where I can't really justify it. City do so much in so many areas of the club but they've done nothing for years to try and maintain the culture and traditions of City fans. What does an emotional video of Kinkladze and Colin Bell to dramatic music before kick off mean when the stadium is full of people who don't even know where Claremont Road is?

City have not let us down on replacing this current clown with a much greater manager. They cannot let us down by squeezing us harder financially before August rolls round.